The Fates of Privilege: The Life and Times of a Harvard Man

In this entertaining autobiography, Smith chronicles memories encountered during "the traveling." He did the traveling during the night when he slept or during the day when he napped, venturing out and back. Along the way he encountered memories of particular events or thoughts. The memories don't comprise an entire lifetime of experiences and thoughts. The traveling was more selective. And, Smith has no understanding about how it selected which memories to visit and which to ignore. Moreover, he paid little heed to those memories ignored during the traveling. They were there somewhere in his past and could be retrieved, to be sure. But, he saw no reason to recreate a lifetime. One passage is enough.

In some encounters during the traveling, a companion made its presence known. Call the companion fate. This companion intervened in Smith's life, directing it one way rather than another. The most consequential intervention occurred when Smith was admitted to Harvard. Fate had inducted him into an elite class, a very privileged class. This privilege manifested itself in many ways during his lifetime, most of them favorable. Over the years, Smith asked himself: Why did I receive this honor? Did I deserve it? Or did fate simply play a cruel trick on the many other qualified but unsuccessful Harvard aspirants? While recounting memories from the traveling, he seeks answers to these questions.